A social network service is an online service, platform or site that focuses on building social networks or social relations among people (e.g., those who share interests and/or activities). A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as by e-mail and instant messaging. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.
In some social network services, users may receive notifications concerning content (e.g., photographs, documents, files, folders, albums, communities) followed by the user. For example, if the user makes a comment on a document they are following and the document is later updated, then the user would receive a notification concerning the update made to the document.
Users though may be overwhelmed with notifications on the content they are following. While the user may have some control over the type of notifications to be delivered to the user, such as via a settings panel, to attempt to address the overwhelming number of notifications being received, the user may end up opting out of receiving notifications that they find useful.
Unfortunately, there is not currently a means for intelligently grouping notifications of importance thereby allowing the users to view fewer notifications of interest without having to opt out of some kinds of notifications.
Furthermore, users typically only receive notifications concerning the activity on content they have interacted with (e.g., commented on a photograph in an album) and they are not notified of activities on other content in the same collection (e.g., comments on other photographs in the album) that may be of interest to them. As a result, users do not get a full view of activity within the collection (e.g., album).
Hence, there is not currently a means for intelligently grouping notifications of importance. Neither is there currently a means for delivering notifications that not only include updates to the content followed by the user but also the updates to other related content, such as other content in the same container or collection containing the followed content, that may be of interest to the user.